Warriors

We all are warriors with sin.  Crusading knights,
we come to earth
With spotless plumes and shining shields to joust
with foes and prove our worth. 
The world is but a battlefield where strong and
weak men fill the lists,
And some make war with humble prayers, and
some with swords and some with fists. 
And some for pleasure or for peace forsake their
purposes and goals
And barter for the scarlet joys of ease and pomp,
their knightly souls.

We’re all enlisted soldiers here, in service for
the term called life
And each of us in some grim way must bear his
portion of the strife. 
Temptations everywhere assail.  Men do not rise
by fearing sin,
Nor he who keeps within his tent, unharmed,
unscratched, the crown shall win. 
When wrongs are trampling mortals down and
rank injustice stalks about,
Real manhood to the battle flies, and dies or puts
the foes to rout.

’Tis not the new and shining blade that marks
the soldier of the field,
His glory is his broken sword, his pride the
scars upon his shield;
The crimson stains that sin has left upon his
soul are tongues that speak
The victory of new found strength by one who
yesterday was weak. 
And meaningless the spotless plume, the shining
blade that goes through life
And quits this naming battlefield without one
evidence of strife.

We all are warriors with sin, we all are knights
in life’s crusades,
And with some form of tyranny, we’re sent to
earth to measure blades. 
The courage of the soul must gleam in conflict
with some fearful foe,
No man was ever born to life its luxuries alone
to know. 
And he who brothers with a sin to keep his outward
garb unsoiled
And fears to battle with a wrong, shall find his
soul decayed and spoiled.

Easy Service

When an empty sleeve or a sightless eye
Or a legless form I see,
I breathe my thanks to my God on High
For His watchful care o’er me. 
And I say to myself, as the cripple goes
Half stumbling on his way: 
I may brag and boast, but that brother knows
Why the old flag floats to-day.

    I think as I sit in my cozy den
      Puffing one of my many pipes
    That I’ve served with all of my fellow men
      The glorious Stars and Stripes. 
    Then I see a troop in the faded blue
      And a few in the dusty gray,
    And I have to laugh at the deeds I do
      For the flag that floats to-day.

    I see men tangled in pointed wire,
      The sport of the blazing sun,
    Mangled and maimed by a leaden fire
      As the tides of battle run,
    And I fancy I hear their piteous calls
      For merciful death, and then
    The cannons cease and the darkness falls,
      And those fluttering things are men.